Hotel California (2013 Remaster)

This is without a doubt the biggest album of the Eagles career; and if anybody has actually and does continue too listen to the whole album it is not difficult to hear why!! Stand out tracks are there for sure; the title track - well, that really goes without saying, just listen to it and you'll understand. Then we have "Life In The Fast Lane" , "Wasted Time" & "New Kid In Town". They were the hit singles; so most everybody knows them. That is almost half the album too - we only have nine tracks in total and one of them is an instrumental reprise of little more than a minute in length! It is without further doubt the memorable & classic album it has come to be and truly deserves to be remembered and appreciated as. You have great melodies accompanied by the guys amazing harmonies. You get to hear lead by more than one of the guys too; though admittedly the main front man here is of course Don Henley; - but you also get the now late Glen Frey on "New Kid In Town", Joe Walsh does "Pretty Maids All In A Row", he does this rather good live too - check out "Hell Freezes Over" DVD. The we have "Try And Love Again" by Randy Meisner. For those who don't know Meisner was with the Eagles 1971-77. All I can really finish by saying is; if you want to hear, certainly one of the best albums ever recorded then here it is!!! So, what are you waiting for; an invitation!?!

Another re release? Another re master of something that's probably been re released and re mastered already? Sounds great, then again it always did already. Great if you don't already have the re mastered re master of the remaster. Cheap enough I guess? Truly classic feel good album. Unmissable. But like most re released remastered remasters they could have done so much more than a lousy single CD of live stuff most fans already have. And the box set is way overpriced too. Regardless of what's in it. It surely does not justify the price. Fans will always lap it up. But in reality they are just getting fleeced. If you have money to burn byvall means shell out for the fancy box set that really dosent feature anything that exciting. If your a new Eagles fan buy the single CD and spend the rest on the incredible "History of The Eagles" 2 DVD set, and find out what the fuss was, and still is all about.

I think all serious music lovers can reel off 2-3 classic LPs as they read this. Wings Band On The Run, Supertramp Breakfast in America, Fleetwood Mac Rumours and of course the above. All music lovers should of at least have 1 of the above. ( well, if you were alive and kicking then ) I won't even bother naming Beatle LPs. This is a great Album which you can sing along too at home or in the car. It is also an Album that gets in your head and your humming it all bloody day. Annoying not only for you but colleague's friends and yourself. But you will find yourself putting it back in the car CD on the way home. Because it is that good. An incredible Album to buy before you feel you have to buy the whole back catalogue and what came after (Double CD THE COMPLETE GREATEST HITS ) Will do the job in that respect. But this Album does the job for all moods. As for the title track......absolutely outstanding and totally unforgettable, much like the Album.

Item received as described, sealed and in perfect condition. Thanks

Have owned a vinyl copy of this album since it was released. I also have a remastered CD version. Both sound good, and the quality of the music has stood the test of time very well. But I decided that a version on SACD, with both stereo and surround sound layers, was impossible to resist. And it does not disappoint. NOTE you need an SACD-capable disc player to get the benefit of buying this. If you don't have such a machine, save yourslef some money and just buy the regular CD. The original album was well recorded, which is a good start point for the DSD encoding of this disc. So what you get is the original album, in excellent quality sound. Have not listened to the standard CD stereo layer, as I know already what that is like. Instead I have listened to the stereo and surround SACD layers. Verdict? As good as I'd hoped it would be! And no addtional tracks - demo versions that they discarded because they were rubbish or any other such - just the original nine songs. A surprise extra was that inside the Japanese outer wrapping was an additional insert within the standard case insert. This contains the lyrics of all nine songs in English and Japanese. The standard insert has the lyrics of only the title track.

I have an admission to make. I like this album. I'm aware that this will leave me open to accusations of fitting into a white middle-aged middle class stereotype. Surely these are the only people who would happily admit such a thing. I can probably sing along to all the songs and I look forward to listening to it. The album is definitely of it's time and limited in its appeal, especially to younger listeners but I think it deserves its place as a "Classic" 70's album. The back sleeve describes the songs as editorials on the "singular state of mind called Southern California". With such pompous descriptions it's no wonder that many people think the album is overrated. The Eagles undoubtedly took themselves and this album very seriously but the music is excellent and I think this manages to overshadow any high falutin statements that the band intended to make. To go through the songs one by one- - Hotel California - Full of tortured metaphors this song sums up the theory behind the album as a whole i.e. California may look great but scratch the surface and there are some pretty unhappy people there. The music is very catchy though and it and some of the lyrics will stay in your head for a long time after hearing it. - New Kid in Town - one of the weaker songs. Possibly a description of the fleeting nature of fame. Possibly as experienced by band members, who knows - Life in the Fast Lane - an in your face description of how the beautiful people live. I don't think any of the Eagles lived a monastic existence at the time so I hope they were being ironic as they pass comment on a doomed high living couple - Wasted Time - one of my favourite songs on the album. A sad, sympathetic song about a singleton on her own again and scared that she'll never find "the one". I suppose we've all been there. - Wasted Time (Reprise) - Instrumental. Perhaps added to bring the first side of the album to a mellow close. - Victim of Love - About the cut and thrust of the 70's dating scene. Wonders what people are really looking for beneath all the glitz - Pretty Maids all in a row - Written by Walsh and Vitale. A meeting with an old friend prompts the writer to wonder how he has got to where he is in life and where the time has gone. - Try and Love Again - Again a song about lost love though we are left with the impression that Meisner will battle on and somehow find a young lady with a shoulder to cry on! - The Last Resort - At over seven minutes long this really is an editorial. On over development in California no less! I doubt Don Henley was living in a cardboard box at the time so you might say that people in glasshouses etc, etc. Yet again the music is very good so I won't criticise too much. So I certainly like this album and would recommend it, though perhaps only to people of a similar vintage to myself!

Just received my vinyl copy of Hotel California from Amazon, delivered in under 24hrs, impressive, but turned with no packaging just in its polythene shrink wraps, none the less in good condition. I decided to play the LP straight out of the sleeve, I didn’t use a cleaning brush or my anti static Zerostat gun, and I can confirm this is a quality pressing, very very low surface noise and hardly any clicks and pops. My only criticism is on the last track “ The Last Resort” for a few seconds in the high frequency of the Guitar riff there is a little distortion that sound like tape saturation, maybe it’s in the original recording, but you have to listen hard to hear it. For £15 it’s a bargain.

A couple of issues here one on Amazon the other on the pressing. Firstly, most of the reviews linked to this VINYL pressing relate to the CD version, neither use nor ornament, when purchasing a vinyl I want reviews about the vinyl, not the CD, come on amazon get your house in order here... Secondly, I have now had two pressings of this "high quality" 180 gram pressing, both have been awful, first one was warped so unplayable, second one has so many clicks, hisses and jumps at the beginning as to immediately ruin ones enjoyment of the format, persevere and you are rewarded with a flat lifeless example of what is classed as one of the Eagles finest albums, it sounds like it has been pressed from a sample taken from an iPod... I have this album on old standard vinyl, cassette tape and CD and all of these sound far superior to this pressing, what a shame, what a let down, what a waste of time. The manufacturer needs to go back to the drawing board, sack the idiot that re sampled this, sack the quality control (if there is one) and start again. Produce a quality vinyl, a quality that this album so richly deserves. Update, half way through track three on side two the album comes to life, someone obviously found the slider that adds the correct subtleties to the album, shame they didn't re-do the whole album all over again with this correct setting. I guess they either don't like the Eagles, vinyl or both. If you purchased this album as a route back into vinyl you would drop the format like a hot potato. UPDATE. UPDATE. UPDATE. Just got this on vinyl again, have to say it's darn near as perfect as you can get, obviously third time lucky.

This is a review of the Japanese-import SACD version of the album. In short, it's great. I previously owned the DVD-Audio version of this surround mix but decided to sell it after it went out of print and prices skyrocketed. Unfortunately, I missed having the album in 5.1; fortunately, the SACD version is just terrific. In fact, it may even be better. The DVD-Audio was amazing, but I actually prefer the slightly softer feel of the SACD. The mix, as far as I know, is identical to the one that was done for DVD-A, but SACDs just seem to have a bit more warmth. Of course, you don't get the visual extras, which included some nice photos and one of the most attractive DVD-A menus I've ever seen. If your focus is the music, that obviously won't matter to you. And for those who don't remember or weren't around ... well, the Eagles were probably at the creative peak on this album. The title track, "New Kid in Town," "Life in the Fast Lane," Victim of Love," "Try and Love Again" and "The Last Resort" all became FM radio rock standards, and in fact were so overplayed in the 1970s and 1980s that some fans (myself included) needed a long break. But there's no denying the talent on display here. Drummer/singer Don Henley was at his swaggering best. Bassist Randy Meisner's songwriting contribution ("Try and Love Again") was the best of his career. Glenn Frey, Henley's most frequent writing partner, was often overshadowed in the band, both instrumentally and vocally, but his wistful vocal on "New Kid in Town" and wicked Clavinet on "Fast Lane" were superb. Finally, the dual leads of guitarists Joe Walsh and Don Felder just shredded everything in their path. Felder would later be dismissed by Henley and Frey, with the result being a legal mess. Walsh returned to the fold after many years, but my understanding is that, financially, he's never been a full partner. Tim Schmidt took over bass duties for Meisner after this record, playing on "The Long Run." The latter was a decent album, but it didn't stand up to its predecessor. There were a few great songs ("King of Hollywood," for example) but also a few too many few duds -- "Teenage Jail," the duh-hey "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks." "Hotel California," by contrast, is the Eagles signature record. The 5.1 mix isolates the instruments beautifully; on every nearly every song, there is at least one moment that emerges as breathtaking: 1. The separation of the acoustic and electric guitars on the title track, plus Henley's ghostly percussion. 2. Walsh's first organ riff on "New Kid." 3. The opening-note onslaught of the electric guitars on "Fast Lane." 4. Henley's vocal on the final stanza of "Wasted Time"; he sounds both suitably exhausted and engaged. 5. The clarity of the orchestra at the end of "Wasted Time (Reprise)." 6. The ENTIRETY of "Victim of Love." On the runoff track of the original pressing of the album, the careful eye could find this message: "V.O.L. is five-piece live," meaning there were no studio overdubs. The performance of the song was spot-on and crackled with energy. 7. Walsh's battered, nasal but somehow perfectly suitable voice on "Pretty Maids All in a Row." 8. Meisner's entirely unbattered, stratospheric singing on "Try and Love Again." 9. And finally, Frey's glorious but restrained piano on "The Last Resort"; on the 5.1 mix, you can actually hear the hammers striking the strings in one passage. Great album, great mix, and a great look back at one of the landmarks of 1970s rock.

Disco excelente! Tudo certo com a entrega.

You know the music. We all do. This review is for the quality of the vinyl. This sounds fantastic. Excellent pressing, whisper quiet and it all sounds so warm and wonderful. I’ve ordered a lot of vinyl and was just checking a box for must haves when I ordered this. Once I put it on, I was amazed at how good this one sounded. If you’re on the fence about this, do it, you won’t regret it.

Voy a explicar mi experiencia con este vinilo, he leído comentarios de que se trataba de un disco de temas en directo con sonido poco aceptable,es igual que el original, los temas están grabados en estudio, no es en directo, debo deciros que es uno de los mejores vinilos que adquirido remasterizados, el sonido es espectacular y la Portada igual que la original de los años 70,viene con fotos del grupo, en difininiva, al precio que lo he comprado es una ganga,ya que se trata de uno de los mejores álbumes de la historia, imprescindible para los amantes de la buena música, lo recomiendo 100%

OK